Kevin Clash
Kevin Jeffrey Clash (September 17, 1960, Baltimore, Maryland, USA) is an American puppeteer, director and producer whose characters include Elmo, Clifford, Benny Rabbit, and Hoots the Owl. Clash developed an interest in puppetry at an early age and began performing for local TV children's shows in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, as a teenager. In the early 1980s, he began working in Captain Kangaroo and began performing in Sesame Street in 1984. He was the fifth puppeteer to perform Elmo, the character he became the most famous for and became an executive producer and director for the show. Clash worked in various productions for the Muppets and Jim Henson Productions and in other projects. He resigned from Sesame Street on November 20, 2012, after allegations of sexual impropriety, which he denied and were dismissed due to statute of limitations expiring. Clash wrote an autobiography, My Life as a Furry Red Monster, which was published in 2006, and also featured in the 2011 documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. Captain Kangaroo was cancelled in 1984 after 29 seasons, and Great Space Coaster ended, freeing up Clash to work on projects with Henson such as the film Labyrinth and Sesame Street. Clash started working at Sesame Street for ten episodes in 1983, mostly performing nondescript, stand-in puppets known as Anything Muppets. Some of his earliest characters included the saxophone-playing Hoots the Owl (based on Louis Armstrong), the infant Baby Natasha, and inventor Dr. Nobel Price. After 1985, Elmo, a furry red monster, became his main character. Four puppeteers, including Richard Hunt, had performed Elmo previously, but it was Clash's development, with a falsetto voice, that established the character. He based Elmo's character on the preschool children that attended his mother's daycare in Baltimore and upon his own personality and the personality of his parents. Clash followed the advice of fellow puppeteer Frank Oz, who told Clash to always "find one special hook" for each character. Clash decided that the central characteristic for Elmo should be that he "should represent love". After the height of Elmo's popularity, especially the "Tickle Me Elmo" craze in 1996, Clash's responsibilities at Sesame Street increased. He recruited, auditioned, and trained its puppeteers, and became the senior Muppet coordinator, a writer, director, and co-producer of the "Elmo's World" segment of the show.Clash worked with and mentored the puppeteers of Sesame Street's international co-productions. He found working with the co-productions "a lot of fun" and "very rewarding". He worked on the 1985 feature film Follow That Bird. In 2007, he was promoted to senior creative adviser for the Sesame Workshop. Until 2011, he was the sole performer as Elmo in all his public relations appearances, making his schedule, as he called it, "crazy". Cheryl Henson, president of the Jim Henson Foundation, called him "essential" to the show. Clash worked on the first film version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in 1990 and the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, which was dedicated to Henson, in 1991, voicing Master Splinter. Category:Actors from USA